Jeanette - Off The Cuff

My photo
Blogger at: http://offthecuffhome.blogspot.com and http://offthecuffcooking.blogspot.com -- My name is Jeanette, and I was born in Sweden, but unlike the famous Muppet, I am not a professional Swedish Chef. I actually studied design and photography. I also was a freelance indie-rock critic for several magazines from 1998-2005, and had an in-house PR company for a while. Cooking is in my DNA--my dad's brother was a chef and their father was a pastry chef, my mom's mother was a caterer, who published a cookbook of traditional Finnish breads and pastries when she was 92. Everyone else in my family loves to cook, and we're not afraid to experiment. I have a yen for interior design and remodeling.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A little rock-n-roll...

In lieu of vittles and pictures of edibles, I thought I'd throw some free music at ya this evening.  Shane Tutmarc is an old client and friend of mine that I used to promote and hang out with frequently in Seattle many moons ago.  He now lives in Nashville, and I'm an old stuffy housewife who writes about food, and not music. (Oh yeah, for those of you who don't know me personally, I was a rock critic, freelance music journalist, and did some off-the-cuff PR for various indie musicians for about eight years.  I still occasionally write bios, and send out some press releases, but not often enough to call it a business anymore.  I even have an old dinosaur of a website featuring archived projects with my old clientele -- I'm talkin'  like 2003-HTML-dinosaur. You can see it at: www.amorphousmedia.biz if you really want to see what I used to do before I became a foodster, and not a hipster.)

Now then, back to Shane's music ... here it be:

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Ratatouille


RATATOUILLE

Onions, celery, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper, potatoes... and some fresh herbs= one delicious and hearty soup. 

Time for The Off The Cuff Chef to butcher a traditional French recipe.   Ratatouille (ra-ta-TOO-ee) is a vegetable stew, although mine always ends up more like a soup, so that is what I'm showing you how to make below here.  For more information about more authentic versions, please consult this link.  Please don't report me to Julia Child's estate.  I know my recipe is not quite up to par, but it's a darn good version, in my humblest of opinions.  And isn't that basically what always happens? Alternate ingredients come into the picture, substitutions are made, etc.  So here's something similar to a traditional ratatouille, that I make every so often.  I regret that I did not have a nice crusty loaf of bread to go with this, but alas, you can't always have everything.